


All That’s Left of a Lifetime We Had Planned

by Strudelgit



Series: lol i killed off all the DA protags [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Deathfic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 04:44:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14742216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strudelgit/pseuds/Strudelgit
Summary: The Anderfels have gone to shit: The First Warden has taken over, and Hawke's been charged with the assassination of the the King. Hawke awaits his execution, holding on to the love he feels for his friends.[THIS IS A DEATHFIC, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED]





	All That’s Left of a Lifetime We Had Planned

**Author's Note:**

> Woo! Alright, so this loosely exists in the same universe as "Dull Teeth", but they don't really cross over except that Morrigan explains the Warden's current situation and that Hawke is dead to Alistair.
> 
> I'm real into the idea of like.... Hawke being _extremely_ platonically engaged with his companions. Like even when Hawke's being slutty and sleeping with their friends it's still kinda all from this place of extreme friendship. Kinda poly, but not really like lovey dovey? IDK how to put it, but even though I mention some making out with Isabela in this, there's not really any relationship that's centric here. Hawke just loves all his friends so much, and uh, it's really hurting him that he can't be with them anymore.
> 
> The title comes from "Scattered Ashes" by Minor Victories.
> 
>  
> 
> **AGAIN: This is deathfic! Tread lightly!**

Five days.

 

Five days with no food but for the single, stale chunk of bread that had been tossed at him by some sod with a drop of pity left in their heart. A waterskin, when they remember. The wardens who walk by his cell glare and hiss at him. 

 

_ Murderer, traitor, assassin. _

 

It’s not even entirely untrue, Hawke thinks to himself while staring off, having lost count of the bricks in the wall. How many has Hawke killed, without even sparing the corpses he drops a second thought? How many friends and allies has he stabbed in the back? Literally? Assassin is new, but then again, important people don’t get killed, they get  _ assassinated _ … And Hawke has killed a  _ lot _ of important people.

 

But he didn’t kill the King.

 

Not that he thinks the Wardens here care about the truth. The bastards. Shamed by their actions at Adament enough to accept their banishment from the South, But not enough to listen to Hawke when he argues that they have no right to rule over a sovereign nation.

 

Hawke thought he’d had a price on his head in Kirkwall, but Meredith was nothing, compared to how badly the First Warden wants him dead.

 

Well, the bastard will get his wish soon enough. Day five. Hawke is to be executed at noon.

 

Hawke is rotting in a damp cell in the basement of Hossberg keep. Quite literally: The wound on his thigh has gone septic, and the infection has kicked off a fever. Hawke’s clothes are sweat through, and yet he can’t seem to stop shivering.

 

The First Warden, with his arse comfortably planted on the throne and his wardens patrolling the streets, had finally taken the last bastion of the Democratic Anderfels Movement, and with it, Hawke himself.  Cornered, injured, and exhausted, he hadn’t gone without a fight, but calling it a fight would be disingenuous: The few left in the resistance had already mostly scattered, those that hadn’t escaped the country had withdrawn, gone into hiding, and Hawke had been alone.

 

_ Is _ alone.

 

No help will be coming. No daring rescue, no miraculous intervention of the Maker or a dragon witch from the forest or any sort. As far as Hawke knows, no one outside of the Anderfels even knows what trouble has been brewing here, though not for lack of effort: Ravens had been shot down. Caravans were barred entry and exit. Hawke had, in desperation one day, whispered pleas at his own reflection in a pane of glass, as if Merrill could somehow hear him through it. But his reflection only stared back at him with his own overtired eyes and lank hair beginning to pepper with grays, and Hawke doesn’t know the first thing about magic mirrors anyways.

 

Trapped in a country in turmoil, Hawke had done what Hawke always does: be an absolute thorn in the side of the people in charge. The Anderfel people wanted a new system of government. The King and the first Warden, not so much. It hadn’t taken long for Hawke to take sides… and unwillingly becoming yet another rallying figurehead.

 

But Hawke cannot even pretend that his death will inspire or embolden the resistance. What parts of the Anderfels the First Warden hasn’t already persuaded to his side, he has beaten into submission. Hawke knows he is the only reason most felt emboldened to rebel in the first place. 

 

With Hawke’s capture, the First Warden has won.

 

Escape was a fantasy he’d indulged in during his first two days locked up, even as beaten and broken as he is. That the fingers of Varric’s spy network extended this far north or that Fenris would march over blighted lands, aglow and deadly. That Isabela and her crew would steal into the keep in the dead of night to take him away with no one the wiser. That Merril would jump through a mirror with her pet demons and burn Hossburg to the ground or that Aveline’d rally the guard, the people of the Free Marches, and war with the Wardens for him. Each scenario more over the top and unlikely than the last.

 

But now, five days in the hopelessness, the loneliness of his situation has leeched all optimism from him. Hawke has been in worse spots than this, yes, but never  _ alone _ .

 

He’s never done well alone.

 

He thinks, now, as he has been all this time, to his beloved companions, his best friends in the world. His _ family. _

 

Anders, first, despite him being dead now for years at Hawke’s own hand. The blade in his back. The way the blood had run down the knife and speckled Hawke’s wrist… No one would believe it now, but it had been mercy. Hawke’s rage and hurt was what wanted Anders to  _ live _ , to force him to set things right. To punish him with the spirit roiling inside him all the while. It was compassion that took his life. That freed him from the spirit who stained his soul just as much as it had been tainted by him in turn. That finally gave him peace.

 

Or so, that’s what Hawke tells himself.

 

It has been years and years and years, and he still cannot sort out his feelings about that day.

 

But he sees the parallels, what Anders was doing in Kirkwall, and what Hawke has done here. What would Anders have thought? About this injustice in his very own homeland? By the very order he’d once sworn fealty to and then left? Anders had never spoken of the wardens much, and what he had said hadn’t ever been favorable. Had he seen this weakness in them? Did he know?

 

Will Hawke see him, when he dies?

 

Will he see Mother and Carver and Father again?

 

Merrill. Sweet Merrill. More or less the Keeper, now, of Kirkwall’s elves. She’ll be devastated when she finds out, and Hawke’s chest clenches at the thought. Merrill spilling tears has always been hard to bear, but the thought of her weeping over him… full body, wracking sobs, shaking her like an insect in its death throes... It’s too much. Yet, her heart was always righteous, and while the others will rue over how Hawke could never stay out of trouble, he has no doubt she’ll be the one to understand why he’s here. Why he had to stay, even when things were going so badly. Why he had to help. It’s the same as she’s done.

 

They’re both like that; always getting into trouble. He can pass easier knowing the new viscount will at least keep an eye out for her, as he always has. Their Daisy.

 

The last they’d spoken, Merrill had surprised Hawke with a dirty joke that had startled a laugh out of him so loud that he’d had tears in his eyes. She had smiled so wide, so proud of mastering that humor, so glad to have brought Hawke cheer. Hawke tries to hold onto that moment, instead of thinking of her sad and alone in her dark, dank house. One of the few buildings that had remained untouched after Kirkwall burned.

 

Fenris had been harder to keep in touch with, after they’d all fled the city. He’d sailed with Isabela up until Antiva City, where he’d travelled inland, towards the Tevinter border. The elf didn’t write often, and when he did, it was in a shaky, unpracticed script, but Hawke treasured every correspondence: proof that, despite how difficult it is for him, that their friendship was worth pushing through every unsure line of ink.

 

The last letter had arrived shortly after the events at Adamant, before the First Warden had made his intentions clear. It had been a longer one: Fenris clearly having been excited about sharing his news, even though towards the end the elf’s handwriting had been a little difficult to decipher. Fenris had somehow stumbled across two cousins of Orana’s during one of his slave-trader ambushes, who’d wept with relief to hear she did not share their Uncle’s fate. Fenris was arranging to smuggle them both to Kirkwall, where Orana was currently living, hidden in the alienage. 

 

Hawke hadn’t had the heart to respond to such positive news with his own, rather depressing, circumstances. He’d responded without mentioning his trip into the fade, or the demons and blood magic he’d been surrounded by. About how he felt the inquisitor had made a mistake, how he felt like he’d traded his death and cheated a more deserving man.

 

Instead, he sent back jokes about the Inquisition, news about Varric, and drawings of Skyhold and Ferelden, as well as a rather gushy, long-winded, heartfelt thanks for being his friend.... Hawke might’ve been a tad drunk as he’d finished it. Hawke can at least appreciate that the last letter Fenris ever received from him was one that would make him smile.

 

Isabela had only been marginally easier to contact than Fenris. She has various dead drops all over Thedas, but there’s no telling which one she would be near at any one time, or which Hawke was near, so letters were a little inconvenient.

 

Instead they’d left gifts for eachother. Trinkets and baubles. Mostly silly things that would make the other smile or laugh, though sometimes the gifts had been surprisingly thoughtful. Isabela’s unchecked kleptomania in the Amell estate had been a blessing in disguise: The portrait of Leandra had been kept safe, carefully wrapped in cloth and stored in a waterproofed chest off the Jader coastline. A tiny wooden mabari that Hawke had whittled and given to Carver before Ostagar in her safehouse near Cumberland, one of the few things that had survived the trip from Lothering, merely because it had been left in the wrong jacket. Books, old letters, even a copy of Anders’ damn manifesto. Small things, but they meant the world. Especially knowing that the estate in Hightown stood empty now: looted and sacked many times over since the start of the mage rebellion.

 

The last thing Hawke had dropped off when he’d been in Val Chevin was a bottle of Antivan Malt Brandy. The same kind that he and Isabela had downed together after a particularly adrenaline-filled day where the two of them cleared out a gang hideout all by themselves because everyone else was too busy. They’d gotten uproariously drunk, thrown out of the Hanged Man, stumbled all the way to the docks, drunkenly made out for a bit, and then both passed out next to a homeless man they recognized while giggling and making rude comments about their friends. They’d woken up the next morning, bizarrely, with their coin purses untouched, but their shoes missing, and they never saw that man again. They’d laughed through their hangovers, walking barefoot all the way to Merrill’s house, where she and Varric had been waiting for them for their next job.

 

To Hawke’s infinite delight, when he arrived at the stash, he found that Isabela had left him the exact same bottle. Hawke had cracked up, and left both, so Isabela could laugh at it too the next time she came by to check.

 

He hopes she’s already found them, or opens them before news of his death reaches her. The liquor hadn’t been cheap, and it would be a waste, because he knows she’ll never open them otherwise.

 

Hawke thinks of Aveline, and wishes with every fiber of his being that she were here. Not  _ here _ of course, trapped in a cell, forgotten by the world, but here by his side. All his life in Ferelden, Hawke had been the protector, the one to look out for his family, for Carver and Bethany. For his mother, when father had died. Always the one to provide comforting words, to stand tall and sure between those he loves and whatever would wish them harm.

 

_ Be strong for them _ .

 

It’s been his motto since the twins had been born. Be strong for Bethany, be strong for Carver. Be strong for Mother. For Varric, for Fenris, for Merrill, for Anders, for Isabela.

 

But Aveline?

 

Aveline is strong for  _ him. _

 

Her heart had been laid bare before complete strangers, and instead of hiding herself behind walls of steel, she’d turned that steel into a shield and turned to protect this family from whatever would come their way with all her might.

 

Seasons change, empires rise and fall, and one day Kirkwall will crumble into the sea. But Aveline will always stand tall and stalwart for him.

 

After Leandra’s death, Hawke had been inconsolable. Full of rage and hurt, he turned quiet and sullen. He couldn’t even cry, it was like cotton had been stuffed between him and the world, and  none of his companions seemed to know what to say.

 

But Aveline did. She’d sat him down in her office. Locked the door. She’d talked about her father, and Hawke will be honest, he hadn’t wanted to listen, but her words drew him in. It was a beautiful story. And then she offered him that drink.

 

“As much, or as little as you want. No one tells you how to mourn.”

 

And he’d broken down. 

 

The cotton dissolved in the wave of his tears and he’d cried and cried and cried into Aveline’s shoulder as she stood there, arms solid and strong around him. In that moment, Aveline was the same to him as he was to Bethany, as he had been to Carver; the older sibling, the guardian of his vulnerability. She was  _ safety _ .

 

And to Hawke, it was the rarest feeling in the world.

 

But if Aveline was like the older sister he’d never had until Kirkwall, then Varric was the other half of his soul that he never even knew he’d been missing.

 

Lothering was not a bad place to live, by any means. But being the son of an apostate mage, and then a sibling to one, had not been conducive to a lifestyle with many close ties. Hawke had had few true friends, stifling his natural social proclivities until his freindly nature converted to more of a biting, sharpened and offensive wit.

 

He still thrived under the attention he craved however, and he was always in trouble for something: dressing the neighbor’s pigs in sister’s robes stolen from the chantry, drawing crude images on the bridge with chalk, convincing travellers that in the basement of the sawmill was a secret brothel… Nothing that would ever draw suspect of the templars, but his name was often on the tongues of their neighbors, usually accompanied by irritated sighs or a roll of their eyes.

 

Who would ever suspect the family of a boy so outrageous, so obnoxious, so clearly eager for attention, but unable adhere to the most basic of social conventions?

 

Stay away from that Hawke boy, children, he’s  _ trouble _ .

 

The fun kind of trouble that was entertaining for the other children of Lothering, sure, and Hawke had been popular, but to let someone close? A friend to share with and trust his deepest secrets to? Hawke did not dare.

 

They did not come too close, and Hawke held them at arm’s length. It worked out. It had bothered Hawke for a time, but he’d had Bethany and Carver to look out for, once they themselves were old enough to get into trouble.

 

Then Ferelden was burning,and it didn’t matter anyway.

 

Or he thought it hadn’t, before Varric came strutting down that street with his bizarre crossbow and obscenely open shirt, twirling that arrow and tossing Hawke back his coin purse. Hawke had been initially wary, but impressed. A pattern that would establish itself upon meeting all of his closest friends. But with Varric, that wariness had dissolved almost immediately.

 

Varric was charming both when he was putting on airs to get something, and when he was serious. He spoke Hawke’s language perfectly, even knew how to navigate around Hawke’s humorous deflections to get at the real meanings beneath his frivolous words. Knew when to respect Hawke’s feelings, and when to call him out on his bullshit.

 

Hawke had never had friends such as those that he’d found in Kirkwall, could never have dreamed in his life he’d be so lucky to have any of them. But that even amongst them, that he’d find someone like Varric was nothing short of a miracle.

 

Aveline had joked once that they must be soulmates. Varric and Hawke had laughed at the same time, at the same volume,for the same length of time, and Hawke had thought privately that she was right.

 

It was Varric who’d driven the course of Hawke’s life. Varric who’d saved his family from poverty. Varric, who insisted Anders come on the expedition, who then saved Bethany. Varric who worked tirelessly to make things right since the discovery of red lyrium, who helped Hawke discover his father’s history with the Wardens. Who was the only one to stand direct by his side and nowhere else for ten years straight. Anders had stood by Justice, Aveline with the law, Fenris with his hatred of magic, Merril with her love of it, and Isabella had eyed the sea. Anders had been consumed, was too far gone, but the rest all stood with Hawke in the end, when Kirkwall burned with flames higher than any that had ever been in Lothering, but only Varric had been there just for him. Unconditionally, from the very beginning. 

 

It had been Varric, who he’d been the last to part ways with after Kirkwall.

 

It’ll be Varric, most likely, who finds out first. Hawke knows exactly the love and hate that will consume the dwarf for the rest of his life, because it’s the same roiling love and hate that’s been consuming Hawke’s remaining days. 

 

How different, would it all be? If they had never met?

 

Hawke would never have met Anders. Never would have been tricked into helping start a war. May not have frequented the Hanged Man enough to ever meet Isabela. Never would have earned the respect of the Qunari. Would never have become Champion, or obtained all the glory and shit that came with it. Never would have been contacted to help that dwarf who’d been a middleman for Fenris. Maybe Leandra would be alive. Bethany, never having gone near another blighted creature for the rest of her days. Maybe she’d have ended up in the circle. Maybe she’d be free.

 

It’s too many what if’s and they all hurt, because Hawke has never had a friend like Varric and now that he knows how it feels, he can’t imagine his life without.

 

He’s only sorry to know that Varric can’t imagine it either, but will find out very soon.

 

Hawke knows him too well. Can see it clear as day. Clearer than his own, rapidly blurring view of this cell. Varric at his desk in the viscounts office. Inkwell full, papers untouched. Staring blankly at his decanter ready with whiskey for the hardest words he’ll ever put to paper, writing to Fenris and Merrill and to Aveline and- 

 

And Bethany.

 

Sweet, kind, empathetic Bethany. Who Hawke killed just as thoroughly as the blight. The life of a Warden had made her cold. Hard. Merciless. But those last words, before they’d all jumped into hell together had given Garrett a glimmer of the little girl who’d once looked at him like he could protect her no matter what, who cried when Carver tormented ants for fun, and had memorized every plant in the Kokori wilds. Who wanted nothing more than a simple life, and agonized over how her family could never have it. The sister he loved more than anything in the world.

 

She didn’t hate him. He wouldn’t die with her hating him. Hawke obsesses over this. In his dark, dank cell. Less dark, now the that the sun has risen higher in the sky and a sliver of the sun has forced its way through the cracks. Not long now.

 

He was so close, he thinks, to dying with her hating him. She almost hadn’t come. Almost hadn’t seen the explosion. Almost hadn’t felt the fear grip her heart at the orange glow of Kirkwall burning, almost hadn’t realized how much she loved her brother and missed him.

 

How she didn’t want him to die. How she didn’t want to hate him anymore.

 

After Orsino, after Meredith, after fleeing. It had been too short a time. It was decided that they all needed to part ways, Bethany included. The Wardens of the Free Marches would try her for desertion. The Wardens of Ameranthine however…

 

Hawke had seen her to the ship.They’d embraced like they hadn’t for a decade. They’d promised it wouldn’t be the last time.

 

In the face of all they’d overcome, how could they have known that was a promise they couldn’t keep?

 

The cell door clinks. Four Wardens look at him with disgust.

 

_ It’s alright. _ Hawke thinks to himself, a little hysterically.  _ I’m pretty disgusting right now. _

 

One strips him down while another washes him off quickly with a sponge. They’re not gentle, and Hawke is too tired to try to supress the cry that comes out when they roughly run over his wound again and again as they try to clear off the pus and blood that seeps out.

 

When he’s sufficiently clean, they dress him again, manhandling him into a simple shirt and pants. Hawke can focus on nothing but the pain of being jumbled around, until one of them smears something on his face. It’s not until the air hits the cool wetness that he realizes it’s his trademark warpaint.

 

He could laugh. The First Warden wants him recognizable.

 

Oh. This is going to be very public.

 

 They finish with him a moment before it’s able to settle in his mind what’s about to happen. As it is, his world is narrowed to nothing but details: the patina of rust on the doorway of his cell as he’s escorted through it. The cold of the stone against his bare feet. The faded sting of his pants against his wound. The faces of other prisoners, staring at him, as they pass by their cages. Awe dissolving into despair as they see his resignation, as they realize what is happening.

 

Hawke recognizes one or two of them. That boy who’d smuggled them food from the basement of his family’s grocery. That woman who’d sutured the cut that had nearly taken his ear off. He can’t look at them. They deserve something from him, anything, to steel their hearts with: a smile, a wink, a thank you. But Hawke’s eyes flicker down in shame. He can’t,  _ he can’t… _

 

There’s stairs up, and then they’re in the keep proper. Ancient Warden artifacts, priceless and rare beyond belief anywhere else in Thedas, decorate the halls with hardly a care. Thousands of years of history displayed like trinkets. The first Warden has already made this place another Weisshaupt.

 

The twelve year old boy in Hawke is in awe. Could have spent weeks here among these treasure and the history of heroes. Now, the man being escorted to the gallows wants nothing more than to spit.

 

The cold stone makes way for soft carpets, then stairs again. Hawke has a rough idea of where he’s going. He had, after all, initially been welcome here. Had toured the castle and been a guest of the king for a time. Till he could stomach the man’s weak spine in the face of all who surrounded him no longer. Till Hawke realised he was no more than a title, and that the fight for the country didn’t involve the so-called ruler at all.

 

A shove pushes him past a tall doorway, and Hawke is accosted by light. The sun should feel good, finally shining on his face, but it’s pale, diffused, and cruelly white. The sky here is never quiet blue, a bright gray at best, and today is no different. The sun sits in the sky as callous and cold the same way she’d been cruel and uncaring in the Western Approach.

 

Amazing, that the blight can taint even the sky.

 

His eyes adjust much slower than he’d like, and he’s marched, stumbling with eyes half-closed across what he’ certain is the courtyard. The gates are up ahead and his mind supplies one last, manic, furious fantasy of making a break for it before what lies beyond finally comes into focus.

 

He doesn’t even notice the gallows at first. 

 

It’s the people. Thousands of people. Half the city at least.

 

Hawke has gotten to know it’s people, over the past couple of years, even those who did not agree with him. Those who preferred the Warden’s rule, or were indifferent to the struggle. But none had been outwardly cruel. Cynicism rises up through him like a tide at the sight of such a mass of people, and he wants to curse them all. Here for a show. To witness the downfall of Kirkwall’s precious Champion.  Oh,  _ what a good story _ that’ll make.

 

But then he spies the pockets of armed Wardens, the civilians’ faces. And, yes, some are barely masking their excitement or glee, but many, many more look nervous, angry, or are on the verge of tears.

 

Not everyone wants to be here.

 

Hawke and his entourage reach the hastily-built platform. Hawke can tell it’s brand new, because the ground is damp from rain that must have been recent, but the stage itself is bone-dry.

 

“For me?” He croaks. “You shouldn't have.” 

 

His quip is automatic, but he’s even less in control of his throat than he thought, after days not speaking, and he doubts even the guards next to him caught his words.

 

He realizes suddenly that they’ve come to a halt, and that someone is already on the platform, addressing the crowd, which has gone dead silent at Hawke’s approach.

 

Of course it’s him.

 

The First Warden’s a charming son of a bitch, Hawke will give him that. He hadn’t become as popular as he had without due credit. A proper politician.

 

But it seems even now that his oiled words of Hawke’s misdeeds aren’t enough to win the crowd over entirely. There are a few who’d been cheering, perhaps, but everyone stares now at where Hawke waits to be presented.

 

Anxiety races through his nerves like lightning. Tears prickling at his eyes, not from the overwhelming brightness of the sun, and he feels ill. His own voice nags in his mind to be strong. But there’s no one to be strong for.

 

Thousands and thousands of eyes are on him.

 

Hawke has never felt so alone.

 

The guards move forward, and as Hawke’s foot touches the first step, it finally hits him, in that same, terrified, all encompassing fear as a deer cornered by wolves feels.

 

He is going to die.

 

How does anyone do this with dignity? He thinks to himself wildly, as he takes the next step. He’d been to maybe three hangings in his lifetime. Twice with his father, even as Leandra had sobbed and pleaded and argued.  _ “They’re too young Malcolm! Don’t do this!!” _ but they had gone, and seen justice done for that kind family who’d lived near the edge of the village at the road. All raped and murdered. The criminals had the tears of cowards running down their faces, but had walked to their nooses with closed off expressions and not a hint of regret.

 

Then, when Hawke had been 17. A hanging for an escaped Mage who’d burned and stolen from the farm near the river. A personal vendetta, apparently, but she’d gone to the noose too without a word. Hawke hadn’t cared, but it would have been too suspicious if no one from their family attended. He’d stood there with his father, both of them sickened by they jeering of the crowd, more sickened with themselves as they half-heartedly joined in when the Templars began to look their way. When they went home, they walked the path silently, and it was never spoken of again.

 

And then in Kirkwall, the last of the Qunari after the invasion. 23 prisoners that Par Vollen would not negotiate for, and the people wanted blood. Hawke hadn’t wanted to go, but he hadn’t really had a choice: He’d been the catalyst of Kirkwall’s victory, and Meredith had made it clear that it was paramount that he’d attend.

 

The qunari had all been silent. Moved to their places as one. Hung without complaint, as if they were already dead, and simply waiting for their bodies to let go. Most of their necks had snapped, as intended. Three had suffocated to death, but other than the color of their faces changing from grey, to red, to blue, it was impossible to tell.

 

It is, to this day, the most disturbing thing Hawke has ever witnessed.

 

Two more steps.

 

Hawke hopes his neck snaps. Clean and quick.

 

Hawke doesn’t want to die at all.

 

The First Warden speaks a minute longer. Hawke can’t process the words. He doesn’t care. He sees the noose. He sees all the people.

 

He doesn’t want to die,  _ he doesn’t want to die… _

 

His hatred of the first Warden can’t steel his heart. He has no perversion of the soul like those crying wretches. He has no completion of purpose like that vengeful mage. He has no faith, no complete and utter acceptance like the qunari. He doesn’t want to die, and he’s moments from panicking and launching himself into the crowd. Anything to get away from the surety of the rope, dangling, waiting for him.

 

The only thing holding that panic back is the thought of his friends, the love they’ve given him. The resolution that, Maker, yes, he’d give  _ anything _ to have had more time with them, but the time they had all shared together... not every man is so lucky, to have people like that in his life. 

 

Anything to not think of how robbed he feels, anything to not regret, anything to not let his instinct to protect morph to hatred of these people and this country that let him down-

 

A glamour flickers.

 

_...Oh no. _

 

_ No. _

 

_ Please no. _

 

He knows it is on purpose; this trick of these three Wardens, not twenty meters into the crowd. He doubts the Glamour failed for anyone else, but he can see both forms, false and true.

 

False: A man, pale, with red hair, narrow shoulders, and a pointed face.   

 

True: A dwarven woman, with a face half blackened with tattoos, and dark hair fashioned into pigtails, streaked with gray.

 

False: An elf. Blonde, skinny, and sharp eyed.

 

True: A man, with a bow to match his tall frame. Dark hair to his shoulders, and a long nose.

 

False: A woman with a plain face, hair twisted into a bun, and a warden’s sword and shield upon her back.

 

True:  _ Bethany _ .

 

_ No _ . Hawke thinks.  _ No... please. _

 

_ Be strong. _

 

He can’t.  _ I can’t. _

 

The First Warden finishes speaking. Asks Hawke with a sneer if he has any last words. Hawke barely notices. He’s blinking hard. Hoping Bethany goes away and it’ll have been the plain-looking woman all along. That his brain is simply trying for some mercy before he dies.

 

Some mercy. He can’t bear for her to see this. Can’t bear to be strong for her here, now. Hawke wants to sink into weakness; to throw all dignity to the wind and cry and beg because what the hell does dignity matter? Everything becomes clear in horrible, horrible hindsight and life, always so complicated, always so convoluted, becomes cruelly sharp and clear as crystal. He wants Anders to debate with him, he wants Merril to make him laugh. He wants Fenris to smile, and he wants to drink with Isabela. He wants Aveline to embrace him, and Varric to be at his side, and for Bethany to be free and He wants to  _ live _ .

 

And yet he steps up to the noose. His eyes locked with his sister’s. He can’t look away now.

 

It’s not fair.  _ It’s not fair. _

 

_ Be strong. _

 

It’s taking everything in him to hold her gaze. It hurts.  _ It hurts. _ He can’t look away.

 

_ Be strong. _

 

He can’t.

 

She is crying. She is furious. She is desperate. But she’s already mourning, and Hawke is almost grateful. She can’t intervene. Not in the middle of this blasted political scuffle. She can’t die in all this. Not for him. Not for this.

 

She’s making half-hearted attempts to step forward, but the tall archer holds her back with a hand on her shoulder. It’s gentle, but firm, and Hawke doesn’t know who he or the dwarf are, but he can see they are here for her and he is grateful. So fucking grateful.

 

Someone’s putting the noose around his neck now. Someone’s reading something at him. 

 

Any second now. 

 

Don’t look Bethany.

 

_ Please don’t look away. _

 

Be strong for Bethany.

 

_ Bethany, be strong for me. _

 

And with that thought, Hawke finally finds it. The power to force his love for her over his fear. It is still there, it is still  _ deafening _ , but her name sings louder than any calling.

 

Hawke smiles, as best he can. Corners of his mouth pulling up and he can feel the tears fall into them, salty and heavy. Bethany’s face falls in despair, he sees her lips shape his name in a cry.

 

_ You’ll be okay. _

 

A sudden drop and-


End file.
